The Vatican Information Service is a news service, founded in the Holy See Press Office, that provides information about the Magisterium and the pastoral activities of the Holy Father and the Roman Curia...[+]

Last 5 news

Friday, February 26, 2016

Vatican City, 26 February 2016 (VIS)
"The message of the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est remains timely,
indicating the ever relevant prospect for the Church’s journey. The
more we live in this spirit, the more authentic we all are as
Christians", said Pope Francis this morning as he received in
audience in the Clementine Hall the participants in the two-day
international congress "Love will never end: Prospects ten years
on from the Encyclical Deus Caritas Est", organised by the
Pontifical Council "Cor Unum", which analysed the
theological and pastoral repercussions and prospects opened by Pope
Benedict XVI's first encyclical.

The text, said Francis, "concerns
a theme that allows us to retrace the entire history of the Church,
which is also a history of charity. It is a story of the love
received from God, to be carried to the world: this charity received
and given is the fulcrum of the history of the Church and of the
history of each one of us. ... Both for individual members of the
faithful and for the Christian community as a whole, the words of
Jesus hold true: that charity is the first and greatest of the
commandments: 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your
strength… You shall love your neighbour as yourself'".

The present Jubilee Year, continued the
Holy Father, "is also an opportunity to return to this beating
heart of our life and our witness, to the centre of the proclamation
of faith: 'God is love'. God does not simply have the desire or
capacity to love; God is love: charity is His essence, it is His
nature. He is unique, but not solitary; ... He cannot be closed in on
Himself because He is communion, He is charity; and charity by its
nature is communicated and shared. In this way, God associates man to
His life of love, and even if man turns away from Him, God does not
remain distant but goes out to meet him. This going out to meet us,
culminating in the Incarnation of His Son, is His mercy. It is His
way of expressing Himself to us sinners, His face that looks at us
and cares for us. The encyclical reads: 'Jesus’ programme is a
heart which sees. This heart sees where love is needed and acts
accordingly'. Charity and mercy are in this way closely related,
because they are God’s way of being and acting: His identity and
His name".

The first aspect which the Encyclical
recalls for us is the face of God: "who is the God we can
encounter in Christ? How faithful and unsurpassable is His love? …
All our expressions of love, of solidarity, of sharing are but a
reflection of that love which is God. He, without ever tiring, pours
out His love on us, and we are called to become witnesses to this
love in the world. Therefore, we should look to divine charity as to
the compass which orients our lives, before embarking on any
activity: there we find direction; from charity we learn how to see
our brothers and sisters and the world".

Pope Francis also referred to a second
aspect of the Encyclical – the need for charity to be increasingly
reflected in the life of the Church. "How I wish that everyone
in the Church, every institution, every activity would show that God
loves man!", he exclaimed. "The mission that our charitable
organisations carry out is important, because they provide so many
poor people with a more dignified and human life, which is needed
more than ever. But this mission is of utmost importance because, not
with words, but with concrete love it can make every person feel
loved by the Father, loved as His son or daughter and destined for
eternal life with Him".

"I would like to thank all those
who daily are committing themselves to this mission which challenges
every Christian", he concluded. "In this Jubilee Year, my
intention has been to emphasise that we can all experience the grace
of the Jubilee by putting into practice the spiritual and corporal
works of mercy: to live the works of mercy means to conjugate the
verb 'to love' according to Jesus. In this way then, all of us
together can contribute concretely to the great mission of the
Church: to communicate the love of God which is meant to be spread".